A Light Friday Snack of Tidbits, a Couple of Mailbag Questions and London Calling
Hello Hackaroos,
As we get closer and closer to the big day, we thought we’d take a moment to answer a couple of your Mailbag questions. Thanks for sending and please keep them coming! Plus tidbits on the Liz Truss debacle.
Let’s begin with those snackable tidbits…
SNACKABLE TIDBITS
GIBBS: There’s a reason for the pessimism you’re starting to hear more and more from Dem strategists. We wrote on Wednesday that normality was taking over in this midterm election. Historically, midterms aren’t kind to first term Presidents as everyone saw in 2010 and 2018. It’s starting to look and feel like history is, well, repeating itself. The latest exhibits I’d share are from the CBS News poll out of Nevada yesterday. Sure, it showed Laxalt ahead by a point but to me (and others) the alarm came in the question about which issues were very important. The top 4 answers heavily favored those that the GOP is both campaigning on and leading on as 84% said the economy, 82% said inflation, 69% said crime, 61% said immigration. The fifth issue, at 58%, was election issues. Not hard to see why the environment isn’t great for the incumbent Democrat in an extraordinarily close race.
Source: CBS News
Next up, is Murphy’s least favorite question on a poll: the generic Congressional ballot. Our index includes a measure we get from Real Clear Politics. The other is from Nate Silver over at fivethirtyeight.com and his averaging has the GOP ahead in that measure for the first time since August 2 (with two days of the question being tied on August 3 and 4). Clearly, the momentum right now is with GOP campaigns.
@hacksontapnewsletter: So it's a normal Midterm election, complete with referendums on the party in power.
Lastly, early vote is ramping up in many places. Already in Georgia, we‘re seeing a big turnout. But, in a sign of the times, we also seeing the potential for harassment or worse out there.
THE MAILBAG
Joe McKenna: Guys – A month or so ago, the news was that Rick Scott had the Republican Senate Fund short on cash while the Dems were flush. But living in PA, I am being inundated on TV with Oz ads and see relatively few Fetterman ads. Is it that the two parties are allocating money differently or it is something else?
GIBBS: The NRSC did and does have money problems on the GOP side. However, that gap is being filled Mitch McConnell’s super PAC, the Senate Leadership Fund. Democrats spent money earlier this cycle in the summer and GOP groups waited more to the early fall to flex their financial muscles and make up a lot of the gap that existed.
But the big four Senate races of PA, GA, NV, WI are not going to be decided by money. Each side knows this is where control of the Senate will almost certainly be decided and is investing accordingly. In fact, there’s plenty of evidence you’ll be seeing wall-to-wall ads for the remainder of this cycle and if you live in Georgia, probably through the first week of December.
Ken Foster: Perfect midterm meme - and the double header show was super - more of them as election day nears...puh-leez! Keep on hackin'!
GIBBS: I added this one to do a shameless plug for our podcast earlier in the week. If you haven’t given it a listen, please do over your weekend. We dive into NV with Jon Ralston of the Nevada Independent and into Georgia with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Greg Bluestein. Love hearing from the reporters closest to these races right now!
A TORY TIDBIT
MURPHY: So Prime Minister Truss is gone; resigned after an epic series of stumbles that deeply shook financial markets. (And yes, the head of lettuce won.) So what now? A super-fast snap Leadership election. In the next few days, the UK’s Tory MPs will choose two top candidates and those two will go to the party Membership for a fast online ballot. A new PM, we are told by party brass, will be chosen by the 28th. As of today, there are three candidates wildly canvassing MPs for support: Rishi Sunak (came in second last time), Peggy Mourdant (came in third last time) and… Boris Johnson. Yes, Boris is back. Most observers think if Boris can make it to the top two finishers in the MP voting, the party membership will flock to him in the final vote – at least that’s what polls say today. The hardest part of all this for Boris is getting past his fellow MPs; he’s far less popular there than he is among the party’s rank and file. (Rishi is the strongest inside game candidate; seen as a moderate grown-up who can reassure the shaken financial markets.) So there is a scenario where the MPs unite around somebody (maybe liked by all sides Secretary of State for Defence Ben Wallace) this weekend and pre-empt any top-two vote among the membership. In other words, sink Boris. Party grandees worry about this sort of midnight stiletto job sparking massive – and election dooming – outrage among the Tory grassroots, fearing Nigel Six-Pack will see this as a betrayal by an insidious cabal of insider MPs.
(A cabal? Sign me up!)
Yes, a massive question remains, being nervously asked everywhere from the Halls of Beijing to the dark Bunkers of the Kremlin to the UN Security Council and the White House Situation Room… what will Murphy do?!? As you might recall, I became a card-carrying, dues-paying Member of the UK Tory party during the last Leadership race (yes any damn fool foreigner like me can join up; just send in your dues). I found out I could not actually vote in the first contest – there is a delay before you are fully in – but now that period has passed and I’m good to go. I was a Sunak supporter last time and lean that way now, but I like ol’ Navy Mourdant and, well, Boris you have my number.
Have a good weekend and get some rest! Tuesday is Fetterman vs. Oz Day!
Murphy and Gibbs